Lazarus knew the game that he was playing, and yet he hardly gave a shit that testing the witch would likely result in something similar to that very first night they'd met. Perhaps the reason he dared to make such a remark about her less than polite or courteous entrance into a place that wasn't her own was just so that he could try one last time to ignite that flame of hate and spite that had been there before everything took a spiraling descent into... whatever the fuck it was that they now had ever since the night he'd allowed for the alcohol to weak those already brittle restraints that contained the beast always pacing within its cage, just waiting for its chance to break free and take whatever it was that it wanted in that moment. One would think that he would understand that the alcohol had been what had allowed for the beast to overtake his initial and stubborn will to ensure that she was the one woman he would never take to bed, and just maybe he might have found even the slightest desire to stop the unhealthy yet secretly desperate drinking habit with the realization that if he hadn't gotten to such a drunken state that night, he and the white-haired witch wouldn't have become tangled in those sheets and lost within those throws of temporary passion. Ah, but for the dark hunter, whiskey had always served him well as a bandaids of sorts, and that truth in and of itself was the likely reason he still continued that self-destructive habit. If anything, it had gotten worse in the man's attempt to get the woman out of his mind. What had hadn't expected in a million years though was for it to be unsuccessful.

He hardly expected her not to react his those previously spoken words meant to antagonize. Maybe if he pressed her buttons just as easily as he was all too well aware that she could do to him in turn, and yet he also found himself almost hopeful that the mention of Donovan having to share his couch with this she-devil standing on his townhouse might just get a rise out of the werecheetha as well. Hell, maybe if Lazarus for really lucky, they'd both get get up with him and his snide remarks only to just get up and leave through the front door to go about their shady-ass jobs. It was the thought of what Ellie had continuously been insisting the dark hunter needed in his own life that had him almost halfway considering getting one himself. Something that was perhaps a bit more "under the radar" that didn't require getting blood on his hands... It wasn't like the man was afraid of such things, especially given what little training he had received from his father before everything fell apart, the hunts that he had accompanied the family council on before it was brought to a screeching halt with the murder of his parents. No, it was a matter of the man refusing to partake in that calling of his own race, to serve as a small piece of that whole "checks and balances" Tal told Lazarus was his fate to follow. He would make his own damn fate, of that he was downright determined to prove. The Daray Council died the day that his father did, and the dark hunter wasn't about to restore something he wanted to leave buried six feet under. Rightful heir or not, that part of his life was done with and that was the end of it.

Vhalla clearly wasn't too happy with his little remark, brilliant blue eyes flashing with that familiar fire only encouraging him further as she ushers a single word that has a deep chuckle rumbling from his bare chest as he regards her openly with that wicked amusement. Now was his chance to try and take back everything that had happened between them, return it back to how things should be. The world was far from ready for the two of them to ever become an item. He'd told himself long ago that after Isabelle, there would be no one else in his life that could make him feel, someone in his world that would ever get him to care as he did for his little sister. And yet, here she was, the last being on the face of this planet he wanted to want, subjecting him to the very things he thought were non-existent."Or else what?", he sneers back to the witch, that wolfish grin finding his chiseled features as dark forest eyes refuse to look away from her. What was she gonna do? Throw a punch? A fireball? Would she actually take that chance on hurting something in the townhouse that Ellie worked to keep tidy and looking nice? Lazarus doubted it, and it was this certainty that she would hardly do anything brash - that would cause property damage anyway - which has him more than content to dare for her to do something. He'd told her several times already that the one punch she'd managed to land on his face at the burlesque would be the first and last time he ever let his guard down around her. Lazarus knew she was teetering on the brink of losing her self-control, could feel her own short temper threatening to snap... and he hoped that it would.

Content to let the woman turn her back to him, he catches that faint growl from the tattooed man and yet Lazarus hardly flinched or even seems to show that he heard it as he sits there at the table with his glass bottle of whiskey in hand. He'd seen Donovan as the creature he was, and it hardly phased the dark hunter. Sure, Donovan was fast and he was strong in that animal form, but the man with dark forest eyes was more than capable of handling him if things ever got out of control. It was what he was made for, after all, the chain of sterling silver dangling around his neck with that single canine fang from the alpha were he'd struck down as his right of passage an ever-constant reminder that if Lazarus truly wanted to restore the family council, he had the potential there to make it happen. It was almost a shame really that he no desire whatsoever to taken up that mantle, and perhaps there was a deeper reason than he let on as to why he would never bring that part of who he was once meant to be back onto reality, but he didn't want to bother himself with that shit. Taking a deep drink and offering it to Vhal out of some stupid sense of... whatever it was that still seemed to linger just barely in the air between them, she nearly turns to take him up on the offer before suddenly that fore flares back up within those brilliant blue eyes of hers and if she could have killed with a single look, that glare would have almost done it. She turns her back to him and her words for Donovan have Lazarus flicking the tattooed man the usual taunts, nothing the were should be unfamiliar with, and the words that come from the other man has Lazarus scoffing."You wish, Don. I'm sorry but you're just not my type, or, as you like to say to the ladies, you're missing the right parts", he throws back at the were before the man touches on something much too fresh and sore like a new wound that has Lazarus snapping back, telling him to mind his own business.

It is then that Vhal gives him an almost icy glance over her shoulder, her words causing the beast prowling just beneath dark forest eyes bristling as it rattled those corroded bars that held it. He refuses to give her the pleasure of those sharply spoken words just at the tip of his own tongue, jaw clenching beneath the tension in a visible display of his own hardly existent patience nearing the end of its abilities. He is silent, taking another deep drink of the amber liquor as if to help him swallow the words he wanted to say, the smooth burn offering that slight soothing to the beast as he lounged in the chair as the witch and were got to asking questions about occupations. When Donovan asks Vhalla what it was that she did, that wolfish grin finds his features again as tenor tones taunt her now. Almost instantly, she throws him another death glare that he couldn't help but find encouraging as her hands shift into a fist as she tells him to shut up. He gives a nonchalant shrug, that wolfish grin remaining etched into his lips as he lets her give that vague little description of what it was she did as he contents himself with admiring the view she blatantly gave him. He could see her grow rigid then, turning to look over her shoulder with that fury burning in every part of her before those familiar words strike against his memory. So, she wanted to play that game? Alright. Intentionally allowing for his gaze to run over her as she watched him do so, his wolfish grin shifts into a wicked smirk."I could have you if I wanted and you know it, sweetcheeks", he growls back to her, dark forest eyes meeting her smoldering blue depths with the same fierce intensity as he answers her unspoken challenge fully.

He could have thrown a remark about paying her, and he almost does. Instead, tenor tones usher that pet name he'd given her the night she'd punched him. He knew she would remember it as the last thing he'd said to her before she kicked his ass and walked away, and he was more than content to push her into storming out of his townhouse. Donovan's words do not go unheard, but in the same moment he refuses to take his eyes off the woman in front of him nor does he offer a smartass remark, not even glancing away when that animalistic sound bursts from the tattooed man. He let his guard down around Vhal once, he wasn't about to give her the pleasure of another cheap blow he was near certain she would throw at him. This time, he knew better and he would hardly mind showing her just that.